Black Women's Writing Revisited

Works Cited

Alexander, Claire and Caroline Knowles. "Introduction." Making Race Matter: Bodies, Space & Identity. Ed. Claire Alexander and Caroline Knowles. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 1-16.

Ani, Ekpenyong. "Die Frau die Mut zeigt - der Verein ADEFRA Schwarze Deutsche Frauen/Schwarze Frauen in Deutschland e.V." TheBlackBook: Deutschlands Häutungen. Ed. AntiDiskriminierungsBüro Köln and cyberNomads. Frankfurt am Main: IKO, 2004. 145-49.

AntiDiskriminierungsBüro Köln and cyberNomads, eds. TheBlackBook: Deutschlands Häutungen. Frankfurt am Main: IKO, 2004.

Braziel, Jana Evans and Anita Mannur. "Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies." Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Malden, MA. Blackwell, 2003. 1-22.

"Bundesweite Treffen." ISD Online. 2 Nov. 2002. Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland. 30 Aug. 2007.

El-Tayeb, Fatima. "'If You Can't Pronounce My Name, You Can Call Me Pride': Afro-German Activism, Gender and Hip Hop." Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality and African Diasporas. Ed. Sandra Gunning, Tera W. Hunter, and Michele Mitchell. A Gender and History Special Issue. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 64-90.

Evans, Mari, ed. Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. New York: Anchor Press, 1984.

Fremgen, Gisela. …und wenn du noch dazu schwarz bist: Berichte schwarzer Frauen in der Bundesrepublik. Bremen: Edition CON, 1984.

Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993..

Gunning, Sandra, Tera W. Hunter, and Michele Mitchell. "Introduction: Gender, Sexuality, and African Diasporas."Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality and African Diasporas. Ed. Sandra Gunning, Tera W. Hunter, and Michele Mitchell. A Gender and History Special Issue. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 1-12.

Hall, Joan Wylie. "Introduction." Conversations with Audre Lorde. Literary Conversation Series. Ed. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004. vii-xviii.

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Malden, MA. Blackwell, 2003. 233-46.

Hoppe, Felicitas. "Dichten ist kein Luxus." Die Tageszeitung . 11.2.1993: 15.

Kraft, Marion. "The Creative Use of Difference." East. Englisch Amerikanische Studien. Zeitschrift für Unterricht, Wissenschaft & Politik. 3/4 (1986): 549-56.

_____. Conversations with Audre Lorde. Ed. Joan Wylie Hall. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004. 146-53.

_____. "Vorwort." Die Quelle unserer Macht: Gedichte. By Audre Lorde. Trans. Marion Kraft and Sigrid Markmann. Berlin: Orlanda, 1994. 9-14.

Kron, Stefanie. Fürchte Dich nicht, Bleichgesicht! Perspektivenwechsel zur Literatur Afro-Deutscher Frauen. Münster: Unrast, 1996.

Lorde, Audre. Auf Leben und Tod: Krebstagebuch. Trans. Renate Stendhal. With a Contribution by Waltraut Ruf. Berlin: Sub Rosa Frauenverlag, 1984.

_____. "A Burst of Light." A Burst of Light: Essays by Audre Lorde. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers, 1988. 49-134.

_____. "Showing Our True Colors." Callaloo. 14.1 (1991): 67-71.

_____. "Gefährtinnen, ich grüße euch." Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte. . Ed. Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1992. 231-38.

_____. Zami: Ein Leben unter Frauen. Trans. Karen Nölle-Fischer. Die Frau in der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993.

_____. "East Berlin." The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance: Poems 1987-1992. New York: Norton, 1993. 50-51.

Michels, Jennifer E. "The Impact of Audre Lorde's Politics and Poetics on Afro-German Women Writers." German Studies Review. 29 (2006): 21-40.

Morrien, Lea. "Lesbenliteratur in der Diskussion." Die Tageszeitung. 8.12.1988: 10.

Oguntoye, Katharina, May Optiz, and Dagmar Schultz, eds. Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte. Die Frau in der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, 1992.

Ruf, Waltraut. "13 Jahre nach einer Brustkrebsoperation." Auf Leben und Tod: Krebstagebuch. By Audre Lorde. Trans. Renate Stendhal. Berlin: sub rosa Frauenverlag, 1984. 103-16.

Schultz, Dagmar. "Vorwort." Macht und Sinnlichkeit: Ausgewählte Text von Audre Lorde und Adrienne Rich. 2nd ed. Ed. Dagmar Schultz. Trans. Renate Stendhal. Berlin: Orlanda, 1986. 9-11.

_____. "Audre Lorde - ihr Kampf und ihre Visionen." Auf Leben und Tod: Audre Lordes Krebstagebuch. Expanded Ed. Trans. Renate Stendhal and Margarete Längsfeld. With Contributions by Waltraut Ruf, Manfred D. Kuno, and Dagmar Schultz. Berlin: Orlanda, 1994. 161-73.

_____. "Vorwort." Auf Leben und Tod: Krebstagebuch. By Audre Lorde. Trans. Renate Stendhal and Margarete Längsfeld. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2000. 5-10.

Stendhal, Renate. "Anmerkung der Übersetzerin." Macht und Sinnlichkeit: Ausgewählte Text von Audre Lorde und Adrienne Rich. 2nd ed. Ed. Dagmar Schultz. Trans. Renate Stendhal. Berlin: Orlanda, 1986. 12-13.

Tate, Claudia, ed. Black Women Writers at Work. New York: Continuum, 1985.

Thimm, Karin and Du Rell Echols, eds. Schwarze in Deutschland: Protokolle. München: Piper, 1973.

Veaux, Alexis de. Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.

Wright, Michelle M. "Others-from-Within from Without: Afro-German Subject Formation and the Challenge of a Counter-Discourse." Callaloo 26.2 (2003): 296-305.

_____. Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora. Durham: Duke UP, 2004.

Notes

• 1) As Marion Kraft states in her preface to Die Quelle unserer Macht, Audre Lorde usually introduced herself with the words "I am a Black, Lesbian, Mother, Warrior, Poet" to her international audiences (9).
• 2) Macht und Sinnlichkeit was published in 1983 by sub rosa Verlag, Berlin and was not only the first German language publication of some of Lorde's writings but also, as Fatima El-Tayeb states, "the first German language publication on the US debate on racism within the feminist movement" (74).
• 3) Alexis de Veaux's account of these events differs slightly from Schultz's description. Lorde's biographer claims that Lorde and Schultz first met at the 1981 NWSA convention. Schultz was highly impressed and deeply moved; she wrote a letter to Lorde in which she invited her to teach at the Free University and asked her for permission to translate some of her works into German. Lorde did not answer this letter but a second one was replied to in time and the author accepted the invitation and agreed to have some of her works published in German (265-66). Veaux also notes that financial considerations played a role in Lorde's and the University's decision about her guest professorship (327) - a fact that Schultz does not mention.
• 4) Audre Lorde's work and activism in Germany will constitute a central chapter of my dissertation and this article presents the current state of my research, namely gathering material and building an archive. An in-depth and detailed analysis of the material will be provided by my thesis and the first thoughts on the topic, which I present in this paper, are to be understood as work in progress.
• 5) For her, this might also entail proving her wrong. She states: "I really feel if what I have to say is wrong, then there will be some woman who will stand up and say Audre Lorde was in error. But my words will be there, something for her to bounce off, something to incite thought, activity" (Evans 263). This proposition also underlines the fact that women were her primary concern and audience.
• 6) As Alexis de Veaux writes, the trip to Germany was also important for Lorde, who had been diagnosed with a liver tumor, on a very personal basis, since it helped her "to allay her depression," in which she feared to slide at that time (340).
• 7) This translation is taken from Lorde 1991: 70.
• 8) Stendhal primarily discusses the terms power and anger, for which German equivalents are particularly hard to find. In her notes, she also thanks Lorde for her anger and her impatience with which she pursued her educational work informing white female 'ignoramuses' about racism (13).
• 9) Lorde herself describes one of her German audiences at a reading in Dresden as consisting mainly of "white women, and young Afro-German men and women" (1991: 70) and Felicitas Hoppe in her much disputed article about Lorde's commemoration in Berlin emphasizes the fact that, in the end, even one man showed up (15).
• 10) This translation is taken from the 1992 English edition of Farbe bekennen which is entitled Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (see xxii-xxiii).
• 11) As Afro-Germans, they share a common experience. Katharina Oguntoye and May Opitz very briefly delineate this experience in the following words: "Our essential commonality is that we are black and have experienced a major part of our socialization and in confrontation with West German society" (1992: xxii).
• 12) For a more detailed account of the development of Afro-German communities in Germany see Part II in TheBlackBook: Deutschlands Häutungen published by AntiDiskriminierungsBüro Köln and cyberNomads.
• 13) For example, in 1984, the year Lorde first visited Germany, Gisela Fremgen already published her book …und wenn du dazu noch schwarz bist: Berichte schwarzer Frauen in der Bundesrepublik. And even earlier, in 1973, Karin Thimm and Du Rell Echols had published Schwarze in Deutschland: Protokolle. This testifies to the fact that Lorde's influence met with an already emerging Black consciousness and was made possible largely by the surrounding conditions.